The Cleaner by Paul Cleave Read Free Book Online

she has a crush on me, which is normal for most women, but creepy when it comes to someone like Sally.
    Because my office has faulty air-conditioning and a window that doesn’t open, I have an electric fan that sits on the desk and whirs noisily when turned on. Next to it is a coffee mug with my name stenciled on it. A well-thought-out gift from my mother. On the end of my bench is a framed photograph of Pickle and Jehovah that I gave to myself last Father’s Day.
    I grab the bucket from the corner of my room, pick up the mop from next to it, and head for the air-conditioned third floor. Then I walk into the even cooler men’s bathroom. The smell of disinfectant forces me to breathe through my mouth for fear of passing out.
    “Hi there, Joe.”
    I turn to see a man who is trying to hide his geekiness with a handful of hair gel and a half-grown mustache. “Morning, Officer Clyde,” I say, setting the bucket on the floor.
    “Beautiful morning, Joe, ain’t it?”
    “Sure is, Officer Clyde,” I answer, agreeing with his outstanding perception and thinking he’d get on well with Bus Driver Stanley. I stare at the wall, trying not to glimpse his small dick as he finishes taking his long leak. He bends his knees as he zips up, as if he needs all the momentum he can muster to close his fly. He doesn’t wash his hands.
    “Have a good day, Joe,” he says, pitying me with a smile.
    I start filling my bucket with water. “I’ll try.”
    He winks at me and at the same time uses his fingers to imitate a gun, and then shoots me while clicking his tongue as he leaves. The bucket full, the cleaner added, I throw the mop back and forth across the toilet floor. The linoleum soon glistens and becomes a health hazard. I set a plastic sign on the floor that has the word Caution, states that the floor is wet, and has a picture of a red stick figure slipping, about to crack open his perfectly round stick-figure head.
    I’ve been working here more than four years now. Before that, I was unemployed. I remember killing somebody, I can’t remember his name, but he was my first. Well, kind of my first—there was that one kid back in high school, but I don’t like to think about that one. This guy I do consider to be my first was Don or Dan or somebody, I think. What’s in a name? I killed him when I was twenty-eight years old. It was a time in my life when the fantasy of wondering how it would feel blended with a desire that became a need to know. The fantasy wasn’t as good as the reality, and the reality was much messier, but it was an experience, and they say practice makes perfect. Ron or Jim or Don or whoever must have been somebody important because two months after they found his body, a fifty-thousand-dollar reward was posted. I’d only found a few hundred dollars in his wallet when I killed him, so I felt cheated. Like God or fate was mocking me.
    I began getting nervous. Agitated. I needed to know if the police were close to catching me. I couldn’t help it, the desire to see where the investigation was kept me without sleep for those two months. I could feel myself cracking up. Every morning I would wake up and stare out at my shitty view, wondering if this was the last time I’d get to see it. I started drinking. I ate badly. I became such a desperate wreck that I did the boldest thing I’ve ever done: I came down to the police station to “confess.”
    Detective Inspector Schroder dealt with me. It was the firsttime I met him, and within seconds I wasn’t scared because I was too smart to be scared, and much smarter than any cop. I had left no evidence—burning the body had destroyed any DNA I had left behind, and dumping the burned carcass into a river washed away whatever was left. I was pretty confident I knew what I was doing. Would I do it again? Definitely not.
    Two of them sat me inside a small interrogation room. The room had four concrete walls and no view and smelled of chewing gum and sweat. In the